


we are what we are (but we don't have to be)

by capra



Series: live with me forever (just not for long) [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M, Pass it on, happy birthday nathan, long-distance boyfriends: interlude, soft goals, that's what this ship is called now by the way, they're zuzuthan and they're soft af, unapologetic fluff, zuzuthan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 05:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18732613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra
Summary: “Is this a fan gift?” Nathan frowns. The last thing he needs is bona-fide stalkers. There’s a first time for everything, they say, but he’d really been hoping he could manage keep an exception going in this case.“Don’t worry, it isn’t,” she says.





	we are what we are (but we don't have to be)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chupacabra (butyoumight)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoumight/gifts).



> dear chupacabra: i love you. sincerely, your capra
> 
> dear readers: this takes place in our 'live with me forever' series. there's a lot that happens between the first piece in the series, 'there's no stopping this (there's no stopping us),' and this point. so consider this a sneak peek into their future, until we get more posted.
> 
> dear nate: happy 20th birthday! i hope you never find this, but if you do: know that if i were rich, i'd send you matcha goodies for every single holiday. having said that, and as i'm not, please promptly turn around, as there's nothing else you need to see here.
> 
> This story is based on a narrow range of cherrypicked personality qualities culled from my personal and very biased interpretation of the publically available personas of real human beings who are, I am quite certain, not similar at all to how they're depicted here.
> 
> In short, it's complete fiction.
> 
> Title from Fall Out Boy's "Immortals," which might be the most Nathan-and-Yuzu-ship song in existence.

Sent: Sunday, May 5 08:44

From: Yuz

_happy Birthday, Nathan!_

\---

Ninety minutes earlier:

On his birthday, Nathan wakes up to a _lot_ of well-wishes. He clears the Instagram notifications for his public account automatically, deciding he’d skim through the tags when he was more awake, and swipes away the Facebook notification just as perfunctorily.  
  
_Facebook: Anna K, Kourtney F, and 451 other people recently posted on your wall._

New Years’ and your birthday, he thought. People who have otherwise forgotten you exist suddenly pop out of the woodwork to wish you well. _And then we have the balls to get_ _annoyed_ _by that_ , he sighs, and clears a few more miscellaneous notification bars. Some apps updated overnight. His credit card wants him to feed it its monthly payment. Stuff like that.

He yawns and opens iMessage. Here’s most of the messages he really cares about – texts from his family, his close friends, and his suitemates. He answers as many of them as he can before his focus starts to really drift and, grudgingly, he gets out of bed. He’d gotten _really_ fond of that sleeping-in thing that you can do in college, and he’s still not reacclimated himself to early rink times. But he’s not at Ingalls, where he’s got his own private ice time in the evenings; nope, this is Lakewood, and Raf will have his ass if he even _tries_ to pull any of that ‘ _well, at Yale they do it differently’_ crap.  
  
So he levers himself out of bed and shuffles through his morning: breakfast, stretches, jog. When he rolls in to the rink, just shy of an hour before his session time, Nathan’s thinking that he’ll have _just_ enough time for his warm up, and that he wishes Colin had been able to come in to town for the weekend and not _just_ because he’d bring Bolt with him (but yeah, that’s a lot of it), and that he’ll make a point to Facetime him during the dinner party later, if someone else doesn’t beat him to it, so the whole family can be together. He’s not really tuned in, so it takes a minute before the front desk clerk waving at him really clicks.

He pulls out one airpod and blinks at her. “What’s up, Jessica?”  
  
“Package for you,” she says, with roughly twice the amount of amusement as he’s feeling of confusion.

“Package? What, they get lost?”

She smiles. “I really don’t think so. And it’s not from Jackson or Wilson, either. It’s just this little – oh, here, just take it, look at this.”

She hands him a paper bag emblazoned with a local bakery’s logo. Not like he keeps track of those things, or anything. Or like he knows exactly how many really incredibly creative different matcha-flavored desserts they offer.

“Is this a fan gift?” Nathan frowns. The last thing he needs is bona-fide stalkers. There’s a first time for everything, they say, but he’d really been hoping he could manage keep an exception going in this case.

“Don’t worry, it isn’t,” she says, “And everything’s still sealed. The bakery drove it over themselves, it wasn’t a FedEx dude. It’s been in my hands since it arrived. And you are not going to _believe_ who it’s from.”

Nathan peers in the bag, past the big decorative ribbon tying the handles together. There’s three crystal plastic clamshell containers at the bottom: two little ones stacked on top of each other, and one larger one beside. The top container holds a small pile of matcha-flavored macarons, vivid leaf green with a creamy ivory fill just peeking out from between the shells, resting on a protective cushion of prettily patterned bakery tissue that’s been crumpled up to provide insulation from thumps or drops. Under the macarons, the second container holds a thick green matcha brownie, garnished with delicate slivers of candied citrus zest curled into decoratively spiralling straws, anchored in a bed of pale icing piped into shell shapes. Silver candied beads decorate the crests of the icing shells and one edge of the top of the brownie. The third container, the largest, contains a generous slice of cheesecake: a delicately-hued light green confection topped in a thick layer of darker green matcha cream cheese glaze, surrounded with strawberries cut and fanned into flowers. A few pale pink blossoms of actual flowers are tucked into the corners of the container.

There’s faint condensation on the plastic of all three containers, and the bottom of the bag is both cold and heavy: cooling packs, to keep everything fresh, are layered under the containers. There’s even a bit of mirror foil standing on edge around the sides of the bag, turning it into a makeshift insulated carrier.

Stapled to the edge of the bag near one of the handles, a small envelope is labeled with his name. He glances at Jessica, who shakes her head.  
  
“No, nobody’s opened that. There was another envelope for me – well, for whoever received the package – and I’ll give you that next, but you should read the little one first. Trust me on this. And not just because my envelope told me to tell you that.”

Now Nathan’s looking at her with _complete_ skepticism, and Jessica just starts laughing.

“I know, right? Happy birthday I guess!”

“Oh, I’m gonna be so damn late,” Nathan grumbles, and sets the bag down so he can pry the little envelope off of it.

\---

_Nathan -_

_It’s not as heavy as crepes._

_happy birthday_

(´・ω・｀)

\---

He reads the message twice. Even flips the card over to see if he’s missed anything. But that’s all there is. As soon as he had gotten the envelope open, Jessica had started talking again.

“Can you believe that? TCC! Freaking TCC. Which, for the record, I didn’t know we were doing rink gifts now? Like, is this a new thing? Did they make this up? Which is totally unfair if they did, because they have like, _twelve_ of them or something, and we’ve got, y’know, you. Well, you and a couple, and yeah the new facility is _gonna_ have more, but that’s not even opening for a few months still. If you ask me, _I_ say this is just them trying to get free birthday presents for everybody. Or it’s a prank. Are you on pranking status with any of them? Jason maybe?”

“One or two of them,” Nathan mutters, barely hearing her. He peers in the bag again and then back at the card, and shakes his head. “Hey, Jessica, I gotta – I’m gonna be late to my session, but could you like, put these in the cooler in the lunchroom or something for me?” He hands the bag back to her carefully, and she’s equally careful not to tip it, keeping its delicate contents safe from tumbling.

  
“Yeah, I got this,” she says, and trades him the bag for another envelope, this one standard letter sized, embossed with an official-looking crest. ““Here, this is the other letter we got, if you’re curious.”  
  
_Toronto_ _Cricket and Curling Club,_ the sender’s address begins, and Nathan knows he doesn’t need to open that envelope right now.  
  
“Have a good session today. It’s on the house, ok?”

Nathan laughs, looking up. “Uh, what?”

“I can buy you fifteen bucks of ice time, Nate,” she says, and shrugs. “Let me have this one, okay? Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, you too,” he says automatically, and then realizes what he’s said. “Wait, shit.”

Jessica laughs. “Go _skate._ ” She shoos him away.

Eleven minutes before he usually takes the ice for his morning session, right around when he _should_ be finishing up his warm-up, but which today still is about five minutes before he’s actually finished with it because of the delay with the package, his phone buzzes – and his Apple watch buzzes also, which lets him know it’s one of the numbers he actually allows push notifications from. Which means...

\---

Sent: Sunday, May 5 08:44

From: Yuz

_happy Birthday, Nathan! they did not have any swedish fish desserts but i did ask_

(´・ω・｀)

\---

Nathan snorts and puts down his Powerade to text Yuzuru back.

(08:45) _u are a total brat, u know that? the desk bought the tcc story. u better not get in trouble for this._

Yuzu answers quickly, like he’s sitting there waiting for Nathan’s responses – which he probably is.

(8:45) _i will not_

(8:45) _it is not a story, i have tracy’s permission to use stationery_

(8:45) _is not the first time i send a friend a present_

(8:46) _if it comes from mysterious sender, dessert just gets thrown in trash. sending from club to club is safest._

(8:46) (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Nathan grins, shaking his head.

(8:46) _oh, sure, totally logical_

(8:46) _ice time now. I’ll call u later. Thanks._

\---

Sent: Sunday, May 5 08:47

From: Yuz

_have fun!_

(´・ω・｀)

( ˘ ³˘)❤

\---

After his ice session, Nathan posts photos of all three desserts to his Instagram Story. The macarons get the caption, 'fan gifts, thx guys 😜😜'. He tags the bakery's account on all three photos and adds a praise hands emoji 🙌 to the brownie photo for good measure. And after hesitating only a moment, he places a pair of heart eyes emoji 😍😍 on top of the strawberries in the cheesecake photo. He decides against the superzoom filter - don't want to oversell - and posts.

Less than a minute later, his iMessage pings, and he grins.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if you are not logged into AO3, you will not be able to see p much anything else in this series of fics or of any of my other works either, because they're locked to be visible only to logged in readers.
> 
> the point is: you're missing out on a lot of the good stuff by not having an ao3 account, and it's really easy to get one, so let's fix that. please ask me for an invite in the comments, i'll happily provide.
> 
> i'm capra, and thank you for reading.


End file.
